Gallego used campaign cash for Super Bowl tix, Disney trips: Report

It’s been a rough few months for Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego. His best friend in Congress, former California Rep. Eric Swalwell, resigned after facing sexual harassment and misconduct allegations. Though Gallego denied knowledge of Swalwell’s alleged behavior, his close relationship with Swalwell has raised questions. Gallego’s conduct has been under a microscope. His knowledge of Swalwell’s behavior has been scrutinized. 

Far-right Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida has claimed that an unnamed woman has made similar allegations against Gallego, though no details have been shared. Gallego, who called Luna’s claims bogus, is facing a Senate ethics investigation over it and has started a legal defense fund. Gallego was previously hit with claims that he used campaign cash to fund his wedding hotel, which were found to be misleading.

But now there might be more smoke to the campaign fund fire. According to reporting this weekend from Politico, Gallego used campaign cash like a “personal slush fund” to fund luxury outings and family travel by hosting fundraisers in expensive locales.

Politico reported that since launching his campaign for Senate in 2023, Gallego has used his leadership PAC and a joint PAC with Swalwell to fund recent luxury trips to the Super Bowl, Miami, Chicago, Disneyland and Disney World with his family. Though Gallego claimed to Politico that the travel was related to campaign fundraisers — and the Disney trips were part of PAC retreats — the whole saga has a distinctly Kyrsten Sinema-ish hue.

Gallego ran for the Senate after voters became disillusioned with Sinema, the Democrat-turned-Independent. Sinema had fallen out of favor with constituents over various issues, including her turn to the right, her “thumbs down” vote to kill a minimum wage increase and her alleged use of campaign funds for personal trips and hobbies, including to run the 2022 Boston Marathon. 

Ten days after Gallego launched his campaign to unseat Sinema — who ended up declining to run for reelection — Gallego used a joint campaign account with Swalwell to attend the 2023 Super Bowl at State Farm Stadium in Glendale. Gallego’s wife, Sydney, joined what was billed as a campaign event.

Through the fundraising event, the “Swallego Victory Fund” raised a total of $56,505, nearly all of it between Jan. 31 and Feb. 13, 2023, the day after the Super Bowl, according to Federal Election Commission records. Around the Super Bowl fundraising period, the PAC received nearly 20 individual donations, ranging from $3,500 to $10,000.

For the big game itself, the campaign spent $34,700 on tickets through two separate charges to Fox Corporation and Comcast NBC Universal, per FEC records. Records also show that the committee spent $2,175 for a “fundraising event and catering” at The Henry in Phoenix.

The Swallego Victory Fund was short-lived. Established three months prior, it was basically entirely used to put on the Super Bowl 57 event. Founded in October 2022, the PAC raised no money after March 2023 and was shut down on Jan. 1, 2025. Swalwell and Gallego each received $7,643.89 disbursed to their personal campaign committees, with the remainder going to standard operating fees.

In 2025, four months after beating MAGA darling Kari Lake in the general election for Sinema’s seat — and a month after being sworn in — Gallego established the “JUNTOS PAC.” The leadership PAC was used to raise and spend money for Democratic causes separately from his official campaign committee. Since February 2024, it’s brought in nearly $1.5 million, according to FEC records.

However, not all of this money went toward campaign efforts or to support Democratic candidates nationwide. Instead, the PAC money was used by Galllego for luxury trips with his family. According to Politico, Gallego took his wife, children and their au pair on two separate trips to Disney World in Florida and Disneyland in California using PAC money. FEC records show that nearly $1,500 was spent on meals and hotels, not including flights, according to Politico. 

Additionally, the family also used JUNTOS PAC money to travel to St. Barts, a French-speaking island in the Caribbean, for the birthday of Sydney Gallego’s boss. Later, the funds were also used for a trip to Miami for Sydney Gallego’s own birthday, Politico reported. The Gallegos stayed at the luxury Loews hotel in Miami Beach at a cost of more than $9,000, according to FEC records.

The PAC money was also used for campaign trips, like when Gallego traveled to Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood in November to denounce the federal immigration crackdown there. While in the city, the family stayed in a vacation rental that cost nearly $1,500 in PAC money, per Politico.

Gallego spokesperson Jacques Petit told Politico that the “JUNTOS PAC” travel to St. Barts, Miami and Chicago was included in his fundraising activity as he attended several political events and fundraisers. In a statement to New Times, Gallego wrote that the “only reason this looks unique is because a majority of members of Congress are millionaires who can afford to attend campaign fundraisers without having to worry about the cost of childcare,” he added. “I’m not a millionaire.”

“I have a blended family, so I don’t have that option,” he added. “Using campaign funds to cover fundraising costs, travel, and offset the cost of childcare is well within the rules, and I am thankful for that.”

Gallego did not answer a question from New Times about why his family needed to stay in such expensive lodgings for these campaign events. 

Gallego’s conduct isn’t illegal. Federal lawmakers have a pretty broad, flexible range of ways they use campaign funds. Campaign committee funds can be used for travel, food, events and childcare, as long as they’re not for “personal use,” which is considered activities that would exist with or without the campaign, according to the FEC. That would include things like housing costs, clothes and tuition. However, the “personal use” rule doesn’t apply to leadership PACs, like Gallego’s “JUNTOS PAC.” Instead, lawmakers can use these funds broadly, as long as there are sufficient fundraising connections.

But even if it was all on the up-and-up, Sinema’s truncated political career shows how little patience Arizona voters have for using campaign cash for lavish getaways.

“This is the type of spending that helped doom Kyrsten Sinema,” said Barrett Marson, an Arizona-based Republican political strategist. “He has to be careful to not fall into the same trap that she fell into — believing that, because you’re a U.S. senator, you get to do anything you find fun.”